2003-03-10

 
New Music Aquisition
A few days ago I took a trip to Aquarius records. I had used their wonderful website for opinions and clips of music in the past and am in wonder that the record store even exists. They say all these great things about Amoeba records here in San Francisco (and rightly so), but the selection at Aquarius blew my mind. They were a bit exclusive, and I wonder how they get by (perhaps it's the higher prices), but the selection of psych and experimental and indie records whet my whistle. I selected two disks:

Sunburned Hand of the Man >> "Piff's Clicks".
This band was recommended to me by MV (Matt Valentine) of Tower Recordings, in a recent email exchange regarding the zine I'm coordinating, Future Wave. Sunburned Hand of the Man seem to me to be an amalagam of mellowed out exploratory jazz, Vibracathedral Orchestra's neo-hippy space-age campfire bang-a-longs, and Tower Recordings' psychedelic space folk timbres and intonations. Like TR and VCO, this is another collective outfit of monkeys tinkering, clamoring, and shining. Brilla, amigos! Overall, I give it a 9.5 and would put it in my "glad I found out about this band, will highly spread their name around" category. I include in this category: TR, VCO, JOMF, Cerberus Shoal, Do Make Say Think, Steven Wray Lobdell, Jessamine, Secret Chiefs 3, GYBE!, Idyll Swords, Sonna, Tarentel, Gabor Szabo, Explosions in the Sky. These consequently turn out to be some of my favorite bands. You can find Sunburned Hand of the Man albums most cheaply at www.ecstaticyod.com -- Eight dollar CDR's, I believe.

Hash Jar Tempo >> "Well Oiled".
I have not dug into this record yet, but I was happy to find it used. It is some of the folks from Bardo Pond -- bluesy sprawling noise trance -- joined by Roy Montgomery, the awesome NZ dreamy guitarist (both near misses from my "glad I found them, will tell all" category).

posted by MM 10:01 PM